It's a Circus! A One Ring Extravaganza, with two Ring Masters, one
facing Right and one facing the Middle.
"Ladies and Gents! Announcing, in the center of the one ring, two
talented candidates highly skilled in the art of walking the tight
rope." Then, as the two rope walkers climb to the top of a two foot
tower, the Ring Masters perform an act of magic, turning to face one
another and suddenly melting into a single figure.
As the two rope walkers inch along toward one another, a gaggle of
Clowns rush into the Ring and attempt to climb onto the rope. Two
Giants tromp into the Ring, wearing skin tight "T" shirts, one marked
DNC and the other RNC, and promptly begin smashing the Clowns and
driving them out, much to the delight of the audience.
The two rope walkers, one named Gentleman Joe and the other named
Tiger Trump, creep along toward one another. Then Tiger Trump bends
down and, while Gentleman Joe is waving to the audience, Tiger rubs
peanut butter on the rope. As Joe turns back, Tiger begins slowly
backing up, causing Joe to move more quickly. As he reaches the
peanut butter, Tiger Trump grins and bounces up and down. And
Gentleman Joe does the most wondrous prat fall ever witnessed in
public.
Carl Jarvis
On 2/7/20,
miriamvieni@optonline.net <
miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> DNC in Disarray While the Sanders Campaign Gains Momentum
> By Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News
> 07 February 20
> As a center of elite power, the Democratic National Committee is now
> floundering. Every reform it has implemented since 2016 was the result of
> progressive grassroots pressure. But there are limits to what DNC Chair Tom
> Perez is willing to accept without a knock-down, drag-out fight. And in
> recent weeks, he has begun to do heavy lifting for corporate Democrats -
> throwing roadblocks in the way of the Bernie 2020 campaign as it continues
> to gain momentum.
>
> The fiasco in Iowa, despite its importance, is a sideshow compared to what
> is foreshadowed by recent moves from Perez. For one thing, he appointed
> avowedly anti-Bernie corporate operatives to key positions on powerful DNC
> committees. The flagrant conflicts of interest have included entrenching
> paid staffers for Michael Bloomberg's presidential campaign on rules
> committees for the DNC and the upcoming Democratic National Convention.
>
> Perez soon followed up by abruptly changing the official rules to allow
> Bloomberg to participate in the debate scheduled for three days before the
> Feb. 22 Nevada caucuses. The egregious decision to waive the requirement
> for
> large numbers of individual donors rolled out the blue carpet for Bloomberg
> to the debate stage.
>
> "Now suddenly a guy comes in who does not campaign one bit in Iowa, New
> Hampshire, he's not on the ballot I guess in Nevada or South Carolina, but
> he's worth $55 billion," Sanders said Thursday when asked about the rules
> change. "I guess if you're worth $55 billion you can get the rules changed
> for a debate. So, to answer your question: I think that is an absolute
> outrage and really unfair."
>
> Inconvenient facts - such as the reality that Bloomberg fervently endorsed
> President George W. Bush for re-election in 2004 (in a speech to the
> Republican National Convention, no less) or that as mayor of New York he
> championed racist stop-and-frisk police policies - are less important to
> party chieftains than the humongous dollar signs that self-financing
> Bloomberg is bringing to the table.
>
> The mayors of San Francisco, Washington, Anchorage and Albany, among
> others,
> have already succumbed to Bloomberg's wealthy blandishments and endorsed
> him, as has former Black Panther and longtime disappointment Congressman
> Bobby Rush. To corporate elites, the moral of the sordid Bloomberg story is
> that most people can be bought, and Bloomberg might be the deus ex machina
> to lift them out of an impending tragedy of Sanders as nominee.
>
> The glaring subtext of all this is the now-frantic effort to find some
> candidate who can prevent Sanders from becoming the party's nominee at the
> national convention in July. Early corporate favorites like Beto O'Rourke,
> Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris fizzled and flamed out. Joe Biden appears to
> be sinking. Amy Klobuchar staked her hopes on Iowa without success. That
> appears to leave Pete Buttigieg and Bloomberg as the strongest corporate
> contenders to prevent the corporate Democrats' worst nightmare - the
> nomination of an authentic progressive populist.
>
> A traditional claim by corporate Democrats - the assumption that grassroots
> progressive campaigns are doomed - is oddly matched by the assumptions of
> right-wing media and some on the left that the DNC can successfully rig
> just
> about anything it wants to. Fox News has been feasting on the Iowa
> meltdown,
> pleased to occasionally invite leftists on the air to denounce the DNC,
> immediately followed by routine denunciations of Democrats in general and
> Sanders in particular as diabolical socialists eager to destroy any and all
> American freedoms with a collectivist goal of tyranny.
>
> Meanwhile, some progressives have such an inflated view of the DNC's power
> that they propagate the idea that all is lost and Bernie is sure to be
> crushed. It's the kind of defeatism that's surely appreciated by
> right-wingers and corporate Democrats alike.
>
> Perhaps needless to say, if Bernie Sanders had such a fatalistic view of
> electoral politics, he never would have run for president in the first
> place. People on the left who say the DNC's elite power can't be overcome
> with grassroots organizing are mirroring the traditional scorn from
> corporate Democrats - who insist that the left can never dislodge them from
> dominance of the party, let alone end corporate dominance of the nation.
>
> Like millions of other progressives who support Bernie 2020, I realize that
> the forces arrayed against us are tremendously powerful. That's the nature
> of the corporate beast. The only way to overcome it is to organize and
> fight
> back. That's what the movements behind the Sanders campaign are doing right
> now.
>
> In the words of a Latin American graffiti writer, "Let's save pessimism for
> better times."
>
>
>
